I fired off a fusillade of manuscripts to agents today, including a couple to agents I met at writersweekend. We'll see if I get a nibble for the full manuscript on one or more of them. My policy in these cases is always to fire and forget, because otherwise the waiting makes me crazy.

To help me in the forgetting part of the plan, I'm writing two big projects, one fiction, one for the games world. I have a winter deadline for the first, and a July deadline for the latter. Guess which one I'm all pumped up to write?

Have you considered just firing off the ms to Baen, Tor, and/or DAW, all of whom, last I checked, had an open submissions policy? I concede that finding a home off the slushpile can be a tough go, but from what I understand, those houses give their slush a good read. Add to that the fact that you've got some writing credits to you name already and I'd figure you'd get full consideration.

That's certainly a good way to go, and I'm considering that as my fallback. However, it's a matter of logistics and turnaround time. Agents' turnaround is much faster than slush turnaround, so I figure it's smart to wait 2-4 weeks to hear from the agents before waiting 4 to 6 months in the slush pile of the major publishers.

Plus, I can do simultaneous submissions when canvassing for an agent, something not available to me with publishers.